Few have taken so quickly to the Championship and to Sunderland like Wilson Isidor has. The Frenchman has so far proved to be a great signing for the Black Cats.
Sunderland really hadn’t had a prolific striker since Ross Stewart. Now they have two in Wilson Isidor and Eliezer Mayenda, who both started up front during Sunderland’s 1-1 draw with Preston on Tuesday night.
Isidor is the club’s top scorer with 12 goals in 34 Championship games so far. And what’s been most impressive about the 24-year-old is that all of his goals seem to have been quite incredible ones.
Never once has Isidor scored a tap in or a scrappy goal. He’s scored some incredible volleys and some likewise finishes in and around the box, and his form has been so impressive that clubs are already being linked, just a couple months after Sunderland signed him permanently for £5million.
Leeds United have shortlisted Isidor ahead of the summer. There’s even Premier League links with Spurs and Crystal Palace both making checks as well. But there’s one big issue with the Frenchman.
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Wilson Isidor’s headed goals stats in 2024/25 with Sunderland
On Tuesday night, Isidor missed a glorious chance to score and put Sunderland in the lead when he met the end of a pinpoint Trai Hume cross, rose unchallenged, but headed wide from six yards out. It proved to be a costly miss in the end.
And it got a few talking, with journalist Michael Graham questioning whether Isidor is simply a ‘scorer of great goals rather than a great goal-scorer?’ That claim itself got a few more talking, with many seeming to agree that Isidor just can’t score headers. And he can’t.
Of Isidor’s 12 goals in a Sunderland shirt none have been with his head. Tuesday wasn’t the first time he’s missed a rather simple header either, and when we look at how many headed goals the Championship’s other strikers have scored, it makes for grim reading.
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Championship top scorers in 2024/25, including number of headed goals
Let’s take a look at the league’s top no.9s in 2024/25, and exclude wingers and attacking midfielders who won’t naturally score as many headed goals as strikers would.
Isidor certainly ranks up there among the best. But of the six highest-scoring no.9s in the league, he is the only one without a single headed goal in the Championship this season.
| Striker | Championship goals in 24/25 | No. of headed goals |
| Joel Piroe | 15 | 2 |
| Josh Sargent | 12 | 1 |
| Josh Maja | 12 | 4 |
| Wilson Isidor | 12 | 0 |
| Josh Windass | 11 | 1 |
| Emmanuel Latte Lath | 11 | 1 |
Isidor may well be a better finisher than most on that list. But he’ll never be a better no.9 or a better goal-scorer than any of them if he can’t work on scoring with his head.
On the flip side, if he can go away over the summer and add that to his game, then Sunderland will have a very complete striker on their hands, and one who could easily notch 10,15,20 goals every season.